


Robin

by Ferith12



Series: Partners [2]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: But I still do not own, Dick is Robin and Robin is Dick, Gen, How Robin Began, I do not acknowledge it's existence, I have heard of this thing called Cannon, This Haley's is my Haley's and not like anyone else's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 09:37:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6189406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferith12/pseuds/Ferith12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you asked people who knew Dick Grayson how Robin began, you’d probably be told it all started one horrible day at a circus. But if you were there for the boy’s whole life, if you saw it all and truly understood, you would know that the story of Robin is one with many beginnings, many turning points, and not defined by one single moment of brokenness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Robin

If you asked people who knew Dick Grayson how Robin began, you’d probably be told it all started one horrible day at a circus. It began when a boy watched as his entire family fell from the sky and landed in a puddle of red. It began when a child turned into an almost-man and vowed revenge, or at least vengeance, on his family’s killer.  
Certainly that’s what Bruce would say. After all, that was how Batman began, with one small boy who watched his parents murdered and on that day, at the age of ten, became a man-child, forever tormented by his loss, already thinking in terms deeper and more mature than any ten year old really should. When Bruce saw the little circus boy, so young and yet so old, he assumed he saw himself.  
But if you were there for the boy’s whole life, if you saw it all and truly understood, you would know that the story of Robin is one with many beginnings, many turning points, and not defined by one single moment of brokenness.

It began first, eight years before the fall, not with death, but with life. On that day a baby boy was born, to a tired and worried but smiling mother. He was born earlier than he was supposed to and was so, so small. His mother worried for him, worried that he would not survive when they didn’t even have a doctor on hand, or would grow up to have more complications and how would they even take care of those with their lifestyle.  
But his father (who only minutes before had been totally freaking out) now looked down on his newborn son and smiled.  
“He’ll be alright. He’s a flying Grayson and he’s strong.”  
And his mother knew there were about a thousand things wrong with that comment, but looking down at the tiny red baby in the incubator (at least he was born in a country with decent medical facilities) with his wide SEEING eyes, she couldn’t help but smile, “My little Robin,” she said. And he was.

Three an a half years later there was another beginning. on that bright sunny day Robin decided he was ready to fly. No one was ever quite sure how he did it, but he climbed up to the top of the trapeze and then jumped. And fell. It was only luck that the net was there to catch him.   
His mother liked to tell him the story years later, like she could still hardly believe it. She saw him just as he jumped, reaching out for the trapeze. She remembered the look on his face, tiny and far away up there but, like all his expressions, larger than life and visible even from that distance. She remembered how he stared at the trapeze, that he came nowhere close to reaching, in complete surprise, almost as if it had willfully betrayed him, but with absolutely no fear. And then, how he fell, laughing, for all he knew to his death.  
In that moment she realized two things: firstly, that he was, indeed, born to fly, and secondly, that he had absolutely no sense whatsoever.  
It was a worrying combination.  
She rushed over to him immediately to give him a good talking to, but he was too high on adrenaline to notice, and only kept demanding to be taught to fly for real.  
She punished him by grounding him in the trailer and hoped it was the end of it.  
It wasn’t.  
Because just two days later he did it again.  
And then again.  
And again.  
At last his parents gave in and taught him one of the circus’s most dangerous acts at the ripe old age of three, because it was safer if he did it with them than on his own. That was the second beginning.

 

Haley’s Circus was a place where anyone was welcome. Haley’s didn’t care who or what you were before, all that mattered was that acted like a family towards all the other members in the present. And, you know, were actually good at something at least vaguely circus-y.  
And if you were a kid? If you were a kid, desperate and alone with nowhere else to go, Haley’s was always willing to take you in. Running away to join the circus was a thing after all.  
And if you were a kid born in the circus like a certain five-year-old Dick Grayson, you were naturally fascinated by these outsiders.  
Dick’s mother was NOT HAPPY about this. Because, while she cared greatly for all the broken little boys and girls who crawled out of the woodwork of abusive families and bad foster homes and kids from poorer countries, who had never really known any home but the streets, they were not the sort of people she wanted her little Robin idolizing.  
But Dick did idolize them. They were almost all older than he was, and they acted so tough and knew so much about the world. He would follow them around and ask them to tell him stories in every language he knew (they came from all over the world, those lost children, just like the rest of the people at Haley’s) and so they would tell him stories and play with him, because no one on earth could say no to those eyes. They tried to keep their stories clean for him, but they were just kids and had no way of knowing how truly messed up their lives were, so Dick learned quite a few things he probably shouldn’t have. Dick thought those kids were the coolest people ever.  
And then Eli had a panic attack.  
No one knows what triggered it.   
It really wasn’t an uncommon thing.  
But Eli had a panic attack and Dick was there.   
Dick was there and Eli, brave, tough Eli was having a panic attack. So naturally Dick couldn’t just stand there.  
Dick went to Eli and hugged him with all his might while the other kids stood around and stared at them, whispering: “Do you think he’ll hurt Dickie?” “I dunno. Do you think we should get his mom?” “I ain’t getting her. She’s scary.” “Will Eli be okay?” “Sure. He’ll be fine in a bit.” Silent nods. They all understood what it was like. How the fears caught up with you sometimes.  
And Dick, arms wrapped around the older boy, for the first time he understood too, just a little.   
And with that understanding something burned inside him, bright and hot and fierce.  
“I’ll protect you,” he whispered.  
And he meant it.  
That’s how Robin began for the third time.

Three years later, the Graysons performed in Gotham, and all but one fell to their deaths.  
Nothing began that day, though a great many things ended.  
There was no room in the orphanages for gypsy circus orphan, and Batman wouldn’t allow him to return to Haley’s. And so he went to Juvie.  
And there, Robin (strong, fearless, kind, free) died a little every day.

One year later, Dick Grayson became the ward of Bruce Wayne.  
One year later, Dick Grayson found the Batcave.  
And one year later Dick Grayson became Robin again.  
And Batman and Gotham were never the same.


End file.
